Many politicians, large corporations and insurance companies are pushing the public to accept Monetary Limits on Non-Monetary Damages. If enacted, this would mean that when someone is seriously injured due to a defective product, or due to the negligence of a property owner, store, municipality, etc., the accident victim would be entitled to be reimbursed for his or her medical and hospital expenses and lost wages, but would have an artificial limit set on the money damages he or she could possible receive for the non-monetary damages, including pain, suffering, loss of quality of life, and all the other adverse changes in life that the accident caused.
OUR OPINION
It seems to us that this concept is based on the ill founded belief that accidents are just a cost of doing business for corporations, municipalities, etc., and that injuries can simply be measured in medical bills and lost salary. For example, if a young man or woman who earns $50,000 per year and is an avid participant in sports is seriously injured and confined to a wheelchair for life, the proponents of monetary limits on non-monetary damages would agree that as long as the victim receives reimbursement for medical and hospital expenses, including the cost of the wheelchair, and the lost salary of $50,000 per year (adjusted for inflation), the only additional compensation should be the maximum of the pre-set cap of perhaps $250,000 for pain suffering and loss of quality of the rest of his or her life. (It should be noted that under this theory, if the same person was a professional baseball player, the lost earnings component of monetary damages would be enormous.)
The loss of the accident victim’s active life style, loss of personal enjoyment from participating in recreational sports, and the confinement to a wheelchair, as well as permanent pain, suffering, inability to ever walk again, will all be compensated by the cost of the wheelchair plus the predetermined cap on non-economic damages. Maybe as plaintiff’s attorneys, we are biased in favor of innocent accident victims, but we don’t think that $250,000 is a fair compensation for such a tragic loss.